Explaining the Mediating Role of Knowledge Management between Organisation’s Characteristics and Employee’s Performance: A Public Sector Perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the mediating role of knowledge management between organizational culture, structure, strategy, and employee and organisational performance. There is a significant research work on Knowledge Management (KM) globally; however, there is a dearth of research in contextualizing the concept in the Middle East. Therefore, adopting a multiple case-based approach, this paper conducted 478 surveys in five public organizations in Kuwait. The results suggested that KM could mediate the impact of organizational strategy and HRD structure. Surprisingly, organizational culture emerged as the only construct that remained uninfluenced by knowledge management practices. This research makes a vital contribution to the under-researched knowledge management concept in the region and the relevant cognitive understanding of social practice in relation to the HRD. It, therefore, proposes an integrative framework which specifies the conceptual linkages between organization characteristics and potential performance.